Poland,officially the Republic of Poland,is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south,bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast,Belarus and Ukraine to the east,Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south,and Germany to the west. The territory is characterised by a varied landscape,diverse ecosystems,and temperate transitional climate. Poland is composed of sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU),with over 38 million people,and the fifth largest EU country by land area,covering a combined area of 312,696 km2 (120,733 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Warsaw;other major cities include Kraków,Wrocław,Łódź,Poznań,Gdańsk,and Szczecin.
The president of the Council of Ministers,colloquially and commonly referred to as the prime minister,is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state,and the office is defined in the Constitution of Poland. According to the Constitution,the president nominates and appoints the prime minister,who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment,the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm,requiring a vote of confidence. Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past.
From 1989 through 1991,Poland engaged in a democratic transition which put an end to the Polish People's Republic and led to the foundation of a democratic government,known as the Third Polish Republic,following the First and Second Polish Republic. After ten years of democratic consolidation,Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004.
The Polish government-in-exile,officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile,was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939,and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany,the Soviet Union,and the Slovak Republic,which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic.
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw,Communist Poland,from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarnośćand other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest.
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005,and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president,he previously served as President of the Supreme Audit Office from 1992 to 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet from 2000 until his dismissal in July 2001.
Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński is a Polish politician. He co-founded the Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2001 with his twin brother and has served as its long-time leader since 2003. He served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007,and has twice held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Poland,first from 2020 to 2022,and a second time from June to November 2023. He is considered to have been the eminence grise of Poland,when PiS formed the government in 2005–2007 and again in 2015–2023,with direct political influence over the prime ministers Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz,Beata Szydło and Mateusz Morawiecki.
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023,previously holding the office from 2007 to 2014. From 2014 to 2019 Tusk was President of the European Council,and from 2019 to 2022 he was the president of the European People's Party (EPP). He co-founded the Civic Platform (PO) party in 2001 and has been its longtime leader,first from 2003 to 2014 and again since 2021.
Waldemar Pawlak is a Polish politician. He has twice served as Prime Minister of Poland,briefly in 1992 and again from 1993 to 1995. From November 2007 to November 2012 he served as Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Economy. Pawlak remains Poland's youngest prime minister to date.
The Polish Underground State[a] was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile in London. The first elements of the Underground State were established in the final days of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland,in late September 1939. The Underground State was perceived by supporters as a legal continuation of the pre-war Republic of Poland that waged an armed struggle against the country's occupying powers:Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Underground State encompassed not only military resistance,one of the largest in the world,[b] but also civilian structures,such as justice,education,culture and social services.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the Polish government department tasked with maintaining Poland's international relations and coordinating its participation in international and regional supra-national political organisations such as the European Union and United Nations. The head of the ministry holds a place in the Council of Ministers.
Presidential elections were held in Poland on 8 October 2000. Incumbent President Aleksander Kwaśniewski was easily re-elected in the first round with more than 50% of the vote,the only time a direct presidential election in Poland has not gone to a second round.
Jan Krzysztof Bielecki is a Polish liberal politician and economist. A leading figure of the Gdańsk-based Liberal Democratic Congress in the early 1990s,Bielecki served as Prime Minister of Poland for most of 1991. In his post-political career,Bielecki served as president of Bank Pekao between 2003 and 2010,and served as the president of the Polish Institute of International Affairs between 2009 and 2015. Since the early 2000s,Bielecki has been a member of the Civic Platform party. In 2010,the Warsaw Business Journal described Bielecki as one of the most respected economists in Poland.
Radosław Tomasz Sikorski,also known as Radek Sikorski,is a Polish politician,journalist and statesman who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland in Donald Tusk's cabinet since 2023,previously holding the office between 2007 and 2014. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2019 and 2023. Earlier he was Marshal of the Sejm from 2014 to 2015. He previously served as Deputy Minister of National Defence (1992) in Jan Olszewski's cabinet,Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1998–2001) in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet and Minister of National Defence (2005–2007) in the cabinets of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Jarosław Kaczyński.
Beata Maria Szydło is a Polish politician and diplomat who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. A member of Law and Justice (PiS),she previously served as the prime minister of Poland from 2015 to 2017. Szydło became the third woman to hold the office,after Hanna Suchocka and her immediate predecessor Ewa Kopacz. She currently is a vice-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. She is considered to have been a de iure leader of Poland,with the de facto leader being Jarosław Kaczyński,the leader of the party Szydło is a member of.
The University of Warsaw is a public research university in Warsaw,Poland. Established on November 19,1816,it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country,offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializations in humanities,technical,and natural sciences.
Balladyna is a drama written by Juliusz Słowacki in 1834 in Geneva and published in 1839 in Paris. It is a notable work of Polish romanticism,focusing on the issues such as thirst for power and evolution of the criminal mind. The story revolves around the rise and fall of Balladyna,a fictional Slavic queen.
Tomasz Siemoniak is a Polish politician of the Civic Platform (PO) who served as Minister of National Defence in the governments of Prime Ministers Donald Tusk and Ewa Kopacz from 2 August 2011 to 16 November 2015 and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland under Kopacz from 22 September 2014 to 16 November 2015. On 13 May 2024,he was nominated Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration.
Poland–Spain relations are cultural and political relations between Poland and Spain. Both nations are members of NATO,the European Union,OECD,OSCE,the Council of Europe and the United Nations. Spain has given full support to Poland's membership in the European Union and NATO.
Poland–South Africa relations are the bilateral relations between Poland and South Africa. Both nations are members of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
